Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

Last Thursday, Mike and I went to the mall for some power walking. The weather had turned cold and windy and we wanted a change of scenery, so a visit to Southtowne Mall sounded like a good idea. Honestly, we didn’t get as good of a workout as we do when we’re walking along the trails by our house. We only walked one mile and neither of us got our heart rates high enough to be considered moderate exercise, much less high intensity. It’s better than skipping a workout, though.

On a lark, we walked into Forever 21. It’s a cool store that I’ve gone into a couple of times, but I always assumed that there would be nothing for me. I’d look at the jewelry and the purses, then leave. This time, we were trying to add mileage to our walk, so we walked through the entire store. That’s when I found the plus-sized section.

Sure, the plus sizes were hidden in the back of the store, like some shameful nod to the fact that there are women who might not be absolutely thin, but the fact that they included plus sizes at all seemed like such a blessing to me. Then, I noticed the beauty of it all!

Not only did they carry a wide variety of plus-sized clothing, they also had an incredible collection of workout clothes in plus sizes. I have commented before about how hard it is to find workout clothes when you’re fat, so the fact that they not only thought of workout clothes for me, but provided them in a myriad of colors and styles just made me LOVE them.

Kudos to Forever 21 for recognizing that fat women need to exercise just as much as skinny women! Now, I just need to get down to goal so I can fit in this little number!

This morning, I was disappointed with my cereal. I measured out a serving and the bowl looked so empty that I felt deprived. I knew that I needed a fruit serving, so I cut up my apple into bite-sized pieces and threw it in the bowl. Suddenly, I had a large bowl of food and I felt so happy to eat my meal!

What I didn’t count on, however, is that my half a cup of skim milk, which usually is enough for one serving of cereal wasn’t enough for this tremendous bowl of apple cereal. I didn’t want to spend the points on another half cup. I didn’t want to skimp on the milk for my coffee (man that stuff is bitter without some milk!).

Then I remembered a trick from when I was a kid.

A couple of times when I was a child, we were close to running out of milk. Mom hadn’t gone to the store to get more and we needed to make a little bit of milk last for both Stacey and me (my mom was a saint and didn’t eat that morning). Mom took the milk jug and added some water to the milk. She swished it around, mixing in the water and suddenly there was enough milk for the both of us! It was like magic to my eight-year-old eyes!

I tried the magic this morning. After pouring in my half cup, I poured in a half cup of water into my measuring cup. I swished it around to get every last drop of skim milk clinging to the sides and poured it into my bowl. Just like when I was a child, suddenly I had enough milk to last my whole bowl of apple and cereal.

After eating so many cereals with the word “apple” in their title, NOTHING can compare to the taste of fresh apple with cereal. I didn’t notice the watered down milk, but I certainly noticed the crisp squirt of apple between my teeth with each bite. Next time you’re feeling deprived by your small serving of cereal (make sure you measure, because cereal is one of those foods that you’ll accidentally serve yourself more of), add an apple. For only one WW Point, it makes a depressing bowl a full-fledged MEAL.

A long time ago, I told you about a recipe that I mistakenly called Toad in the Hole:

• Starling Fitness » Toad in the Hole

I learned last month that this dish is NOT called Toad in the Hole. That is a sausages in Yorkshire Pudding dish, which I have never made nor tasted. This dish is called Eggs in a Nest. Mike’s mom always called this dish Toad in the Hole, so that’s what I called it here (since he taught me to make it).

I love to make Eggs in a Nest, but eating it every day can get boring, so I made a variation of it that is a little like French Toast without the syrupy calories.

Eggs in a Nest

Ingredients:

• One slice of whole wheat bread
• One egg
• Non-stick cooking spray (or canola oil – add 1 Point per teaspoon)
• One packet of Stevia
• Cinnamon to taste

Directions:

• Spray the pan with non-stick cooking spray (or add the oil to the pan).
• Using a glass, cut a hole in the whole wheat bread and place the bread in the pan.
• Crack the egg into a bowl. Mix half the packet of Stevia and cinnamon with the egg and beat lightly. Pour the egg mixture into the hole.
• Sprinkle the rest of the Stevia packet and cinnamon over the toast and egg.
• Put a lid on the pan and cook for four minutes.
• Toast the round piece (or throw it away if you want to limit your Points).

Calories: Approx. 150 WWPoints: 3 (4 if you use canola oil)

You can see all of the photos here:

• Eggs in a Nest – a set on Flickr

I had a shock yesterday when I took out my measuring cups. I had been wondering how much water my coffee mug and my favorite water cup actually held. I counted the coffee mug as two cups and the tall glass as three cups based on an eyeball estimate.

Imagine my surprise when I pulled out the measuring cup, poured water into them and found that BOTH only held two cups of liquid. There is a little room at the top of both of them for about a quarter cup more water if I were willing to carefully lift them to my lips, but mostly, they only hold two cups.

This was a surprise to me because I had been counting the tall glass as three cups ever since I bought the cup full of alcoholic slushie in Las Vegas. Not only did I overestimate the calories of the alcoholic drink, I have been overestimating how much water I’ve been drinking ever since.

Instead of six glasses of water every day, I’ve been getting only four. In the case of the alcohol, I ended up counting more calories than I actually had, which is probably why I lost weight that week in Las Vegas.

Why should I measure? Because looks can be VERY deceiving.

Here is an amazing video from Jamie Oliver. At first, I was kind of bugged by him because he spent the first fifteen minutes trying to scare us about obesity. In fact, when he started showing the pictures of fat people in West Virginia, I was ready to just nix the whole video because it seemed like a useless scare tactic, and I REALLY didn’t need to see the wheelbarrow of sugar cubes. You stack up five years of ANYTHING, it looks like a lot, plus, if you notice, he had taped up the bottom of the wheelbarrow to make it look more full than it actually was.

If you feel like you already KNOW that we need to lose weight, fast forward to the 14:18 mark to spare yourself from the piousness of the beginning.

If you do like he suggested and learn to cook ten healthy recipes, that is enough variety to keep you from getting bored. He also suggested that people teach their children and friends how to cook these healthy recipes and these things will escalate to the entire nation. It’s a great idea and Jamie Oliver is on the right track. I find it ironic, however, that the next video on YouTube with Jamie Oliver is for Parmesan Chicken.

After watching, it looks like that piece of chicken has about as many calories as a typical hamburger. He put so much cheese and prosciutto on the large chicken breast that the fat content is about as high as a hamburger as well (and that was BEFORE he cooked it in oil). He added salt with the cheese and herbs and then put even MORE salt on while it was cooking. I understand that fresh food is better than fast food, but that recipe for Parmesan Chicken is no better than a McDonald’s chicken sandwich. Considering how many fingers he pointed at Main Street, school, home and even the workplace, he should have pointed a finger or two at himself.

Video via: nakedjen: When I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and it is all one.

• ran 0.57 mi on 3/14/2010 at 7:24 PM with a pace of 28'05"/mi http://go.nike.com/5p850cl #
• ran 0.18 mi on 3/11/2010 at 6:23 AM with a pace of 26'21"/mi http://go.nike.com/01ksqbtl #
• Jillian Michaels Sued for False Advertising: Why is she selling diet pills? Isn't that against her philosophy? http://tinyurl.com/yd9cytk #

Next time you’re feeling like overeating, take a moment and watch this animation for a little while.

Sometimes just seeing the phrase, “I love you,” is enough to distract me from eating and helps me keep on track. It turns out that sometimes I try to eat instead of just letting myself experience positive emotions.

Animated GIF via: * Your daily gif blog *: For That Special Someone!

I just came off two weeks of severe sickness. I’ve worn a indent into the couch in the living room and every garbage bin in the house is filled with tissues and empty Mucinex bottles. I’m still coughing and stuffy, but now I’m finally able to stand without dizziness and I have enough energy to turn on the computer and push a few keyboard keys. How did I eat while I was sick?

Quite poorly, actually…

I usually stay away from juices because they have a lot of calories and don’t really fill me up. While I was sick however, I craved orange juice. It was one of the foods my mother gave me plenty of when I was sick because the vitamin C was thought to help with colds back in the Seventies. While I lay on the couch, unable to do anything more than read some comic books and gossip magazines, I drank almost a gallon of orange juice.

Probably not the healthiest choice available to me.

What should I have done? Shouldn’t I just stop trying to diet when I’m sick? No. Following my diet plan would have probably helped me get healthy quicker, but I abandoned it at the first moment of ailment. Why?

Comfort.

Comfort food has its name for a very important reason. It makes us feel a little better. Did the orange juice and the Tyson Chicken Cordon Blue Bites make my sinuses drain? No. Did the french fries and cheeseburger make my muscle aches go away? No. Did the macaroni and cheese ease my dizziness? No. How exactly did all that food make me feel better?

It didn’t. Comfort food makes my BRAIN feel better not my BODY.

So, how do I fix this? How do I make my brain feel better without abusing my body?

The New Comfort

There are several ways to comfort myself without stuffing my face. Firstly, is to nurture myself WITHOUT food. Here is a list of things that make me feel comforted.

• A warm bed: A heated mattress pad or cuddly husband, either will do.
• A SOFT blanket: Not the scratchy afghan I huddled under on the couch. I should have found a soft blanket that makes me feel hugged by a cloud.
• Quiet music: Instead of watching endless episodes of South Park, I should have listened to some soothing music. It would have helped me sleep, which is what I needed more than anything.
• Light reading: I got this one right. I curled up with a stack of comic books and gossip magazines. Not enough intellect to tax my mind, but just enough entertainment to distract me from the pain.
• A purring kitty: Maggie, purring, warm and kneading on my shoulder was another comforting moment in my day.
• A humidifier or vaporizer: The new vaporizers are a lot safer than they used to be when I was a kid, but the vapor in the air is different, somehow. I’d like to find an old Vicks vaporizer that risks burning me every time I fill it just to get that thick and watery humidity in my room.

Giving myself this sort of nurturing will help me need comfort food less. What do I do about those cravings for comfort food, when they do come?

The New Comfort FOOD

Macaroni and cheese, chicken soup and orange juice used to be the foods that I ate when I was sick. In fact, they were the staples of my diet this last time around. They don’t actually cure me, however, although there is a case for chicken soup. All they do is make me feel better emotionally.

The only way to solve the comfort food problem is to teach my body to crave new comfort foods.

Next time I’m sad, sick or upset, instead of turning to high fat, high carb and high salt foods, I need to turn to healthy foods. If every time I got sick, I ate apples, I would start to crave apples every time I got sick. Comfort food isn’t some magical combination of ingredients that makes me instantly calm. It’s the mere act of repetition that makes it comforting to me. I need to retrain my body to crave healthy food instead of what it currently craves.

I suspect this will take a while before the new cravings take hold and override the years of abuse I’ve done to myself. As soon as I’m able to make that leap, I’ll tell you about it.

• ran 0.97 mi on 3/4/2010 at 10:20 AM with a pace of 21'50"/mi http://go.nike.com/2msvb36 #

• ran 0.57 mi on 2/26/2010 at 4:33 PM with a pace of 25'27"/mi http://go.nike.com/a286g5c #
• Super sick. I might be out of commission for a while. #
• ran 1.05 mi on 2/22/2010 at 10:04 AM with a pace of 20'12"/mi http://go.nike.com/654kv62 #
• RT @TWLOHA "This week is National Eating Disorders Awareness week and this year's theme is, "It's time to talk about it." #